Noise: a Hole in the Silence

Silence. Noise. And, in the middle, between the two poles, every possible variation and gradation. Noise: a Hole in the Silence brings together works by twenty-one artists. Each work helps to outline a particular fragment within the complex panorama of sounds, noises, hums and silences that make up the exhibition, which takes its inspiration from Een lek in het zwijgen: noise, an event conceived and organized by Gwy Mandelinck (poetry) and Giacinto Di Pietrantonio (visual arts) at Watou (Belgium) during the summer of 2007 and judged the best exhibition of the year in Belgium.

Visitors are free to wander around the exhibition, and to accept the invitation to -listen to me- that is repeated on their encounter with each work. The material of sound, at times strongly present, at others mysterious, is articulated and modulated through different languages: the sound fragments, multiplies, vanishes for a moment to reappear in a laugh or in the sculptural and material presence of a piano, or simply in the gust of wind that makes a rod attached to the branch of a tree vibrate.

The protagonists of this exhibition: Joseph Beuys (Germany), Marcel Broodthaers (Belgium), John Cage (USA), Mircea Cantor (Romania), Giuseppe Chiari (Italy), Jimmie Durham (USA), Jan Fabre (Belgium), Lara Favaretto (Italy), William Kentridge (South Africa), La Monte Young (USA), Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (Italy), Kris Martin (Belgium), Shirin Neshat (Iran), Melik Ohanian (France), Yoko Ono (Japan), Adrian Paci (Albania), Diego Perrone (Italy), Miguel Angel Rios (Argentina), Luigi Russolo (Italia), Mungo Thomson (USA), Bill Viola (USA), Jordan Wolfson (USA).

The works are accompanied by poetry intersecting with art and offering the visitor a listening experience that continually creates new impressions and new meanings.
In the exhibition there are the poems of: Hugo Claus, Charles Ducal, Gerrit Komrij, Rutger Kopland, Anton Korteweg, Erik Lindner, Lucebert, Gwy Mandelinck, Eugenio Montale, Erwin Mortier, Fernando Pessoa, Juan Manuel Roca, Camillo Sbarbaro, Geert van Istendael, Peter Verhelst.

Spazio Oberdan, Viale Vittorio Veneto 2, Milan opening times: every day 10 am - 7:30 pm, Tuesday and Thursday until 10 pm, closed on Monday ticket: full -6.20, reduced -4.10; school parties -2.70 entrance free of charge on the first Tuesday of every month.